[immibis]

Or we just didn't estimate the maximum population correctly, or managed to keep pushing it up for a century with improved agricultural technology.

It's hubris to suppose humans are immune to natural laws that seem to apply to everything else.

[hnbad]

We know that poverty, high mortality, lack of education and lower social and legal status for women are factors contributing to net population growth. We also claim to be interested in fixing these problems globally - even the most zealous defenders of capitalism are quick to cite statistics intended to demonstrate a decline in global poverty.

On the other hand we have people panicking about population decline because 1) our economy (including many pension systems) is built on the obviously unsustainable paradigm of infinite growth and 2) some people have very unhealthy feelings about the relative proportions of arbitrary demographic groups because of race essentialist bunk-science that is still being regurgitated by people who benefit from sowing division along those lines to distract from themselves.